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cumstance of human life. War stands upon this pinnacle of depravity alone. She, only, in the su premacy of crime, has told us that she has abolished even the obligation to be virtuous.

Some writers who have perceived the monstrousness of this system, have told us that a soldier should assure himself, before he engages in a war, that it is a lawful and just one; and they acknowledge that, if he does not feel this assurance, he is a "murderer." | But how is he to know that the war is just? It is frequently difficult for the people distinctly to discover what the objects of a war are. And if the soldier knew that it was just in its commencement, how is he to know that it will continue just in its prosecution? Every war is, in some parts of its course, wicked and unjust; and who can tell what that course will be? You say When he discovers any injustice or wickedness, let him withdraw: we answer, He cannot; and the truth is, that there is no way of avoiding the evil, but by avoiding the

army.

der will show me any case in life parallel to that to which I have applied it.

No one questions whether military power be arbitrary. And what are the customary feelings of mankind with respect to a subjection to arbitrary power? How do we feel and think, when we hear of a person who is obliged to do whatever other men command, and who, the moment he refuses, is punished for attempting to be free? If a man orders his servant to do a given action, he is at liberty, if he think the action improper, or if, from any other cause, he choose not to do it, to refuse his obedience. Far other is the nature of military subjection. The soldier is compelled to obey, whatever be his inclination or his will. It matters not whether he have entered the service voluntarily or involuntarily. Being in it, he has but one alternative-submission to arbitrary power, or punishment-the punishment of death perhaps for refusing to submit. Let the reader imagine to himself any other cause or purpose for which freemen shall be subjected to such a condition, and he will then see, that condition in its proper light. The influence of habit and the gloss of public opinion make situations that would otherwise be loathsome and revolting, not only tolerable but pleasurable. Take away this influence and this Christi-gloss from the situation of a soldier, and what should we call it? We should call it a state of degradation and of bondage. But habit and public opinion, although they may influence notions, cannot alter things. It is a state intellectually, morally, and politically, of bondage and degradation.

It is an enquiry of much interest, under what circumstances of responsibility a man supposes himself to be placed, who thus abandons and violates his own sense of rectitude and of his duties. Either he is responsible for his actions, or he is not; and the question is a serious one to determine. * anity has certainly never stated any cases in which personal responsibility ceases. If she admits such cases, she has at least not told us so; but she has told us, explicitly and repeatedly, that she does require individual obedience and impose individual responsibility. She has made no exceptions to the imperativeness of her obligations, whether we are required by others to neglect. them or not; and I can discover in her sanctions no reason to suppose, that in her final adjudications she admits the plea, that another required us to do that which she required us to forbear. But it may be feared, it may be be lieved, that how little soever religion will abate of the responsibility of those who obey, she will impose not a little upon those who command. They, at least, are answerable for the enormities of war: unless, indeed, any one shall tell me that responsibility attaches nowhere; that that which would be wickedness in another man, is innocence in a soldier; and that heaven has granted to the directors of war a privileged immunity, by virtue of which crime incurs no guilt and receives no punish

ment.

And here it is fitting to observe, that the obedience to arbitrary power which war exacts, possesses more of the character of servility, and even of slavery, than we are accustomed to suppose. I will acknowledge that when I see a company of men in a stated dress, and of a stated colour, ranged, rank and file, in the attitude of obedience, turning or walking at the word of another, now changing the position of a limb and now altering the angle of a foot, I feel that there is something in the system that is wrong-something incongruous with the proper dignity, with the intellectual station of man. do not know whether I shall be charged with indulging in idle sentiment or idler affectation. If I hold unusual language upon the subject, let it be remembered that the subject is itself unusual. I will retract my affectation and sentiment, if the rea.

I

* Vattel indeed tells us that soldiers ought to "submit their judgment." "What," says he, "would be the consequence, if at every step of the Sovereign the subjects were at liberty to weigh the justice of his reasons, and refuse to march to a war which, to them, might appear unjust?" Law of Nat. b. 3, c. 11, sec. 187. Gisborne holds very different language. "It is," he says, "at all times the duty of an Englishman steadfastly to decline obeying any orders of his superiors, which his conscience should tell him were in any degree impious or unjust." Duties of Men.

war.

But the reader will say that this submission to arbitrary power is necessary to the prosecution of I know it; and that is the very point for observation. It is because it is necessary to war that it is noticed here: for a brief but clear argument results:-That custom to which such a state of mankind is necessary, must inevitably be bad;-it must inevitably be adverse to rectitude and to Christianity. So deplorable is the bondage which war produces, that we often hear, during a war, of subsidies from one nation to another, for the loan, or rather for the purchase of an army. To borrow ten thousand men who know nothing of our quarrel and care nothing for it, to help us to slaughter their fellows! To pay for their help in guineas to their sovereign! Well has it been exclaimed,

"War is a game, that, were their subjects wise,

Kings would not play at."

That a

A prince sells his subjects as a farmer sells his cat-
tle;
and sends them to destroy a people, whom, if
they had been higher bidders, he would perhaps have
sent them to defend. The historian has to record
such miserable facts, as that a potentate's troops
were, during one war, “ hired to the king of Great
Britain and his enemies alternately, as the scale of
convenience happened to preponderate!"*
large number of persons with the feelings and reason
of men, should coolly listen to the bargain of their
sale, should compute the guineas that will pay for
their blood, and should then quietly be led to a place
where they are to kill people towards whom they
have no animosity, is simply wonderful. To what
has inveteracy of habit reconciled mankind! I have
no capacity of supposing a case of slavery, if slavery
be denied in this. Men have been sold in another
continent, and philanthropy has been shocked and
aroused to interference; yet these men were sold,
not to be slaughtered but to work: but of the pur-
chases and sales of the world's political slave-dealers,
what does philanthropy think or care? There is no
reason to doubt that, upon other subjects of horror,

• Smollett's England, v. 4, p. 330.

similar familiarity of habit would produce similar effects; or that he who heedlessly contemplates the purchase of an army, wants nothing but this familiarity to make him heedlessly look on at the commission of parricide.

Yet I do not know whether, in its effects on the military character, the greatest moral evil of war is to be sought. Upon the community its effects are indeed less apparent, because they who are the secondary subjects of the immoral influence, are less intensely affected by it than the immediate agents of its diffusion. But whatever is deficient in the degree of evil, is probably more than compensated by its extent.

The influence is like that of a continual and noxious vapour: we neither regard nor perceive it, but it secretly undermines the moral health.

Every one knows that vice is contagious. The depravity of one man has always a tendency to deprave his neighbours; and it therefore requires no unusual acuteness to discover, that the prodigious mass of immorality and crime which is accumulated by a war, must have a powerful effect in "demoralizing" the public. But there is one circumstance connected with the injurious influence of war, which makes it peculiarly operative and malignant. It is, that we do not hate or fear the influence, and do not fortify ourselves against it. Other vicious influences insinuate themselves into our minds by stealth; but this we receive with open embrace. Glory, and patriotism, and bravery, and conquest, are bright and glittering things. Who, when he is looking, delighted, upon these things, is armed against the mischiefs which they veil ?

The evil is, in its own nature, of almost universal operation. During a war, a whole people become familiarized with the utmost excesses of enormitywith the utmost intensity of human wickedness-and they rejoice and exult in them; so that there is probably not an individual in a hundred who does not lose something of his Christian principles by a ten years' war.

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"It is, in my mind," said Fox, no small misfortune to live at a period when scenes of horror and blood are frequent."-" One of the most evil consequences of war is, that it tends to render the hearts of mankind callous to the feelings and sentiments of humanity."

Those who know what the moral law of God is, and who feel an interest in the virtue and the happiness of the world, will not regard the animosity of Party and the restlessness of resentment which are produced by a war, as trifling evils. If any thing be opposite to Christianity, it is retaliation and revenge. In the obligation to restrain these dispositions, much of the characteristic placability of Christianity consists. The very essence and spirit of our religion are abhorrent from resentment.-The very essence and spirit of war are promotive of resentment; and what, then, must be their mutual adverseness? That war excites these passions, needs not to be proved. When a war is in contemplation, or when it has been begun, what are the endeavours of its promoters? They animate us by every artifice of excitement to hatred and animosity. Pamphlets, Placards, Newspapers, Caricatures-every agent is in requisition to irritate us into malignity. Nay, dreadful as it is, the pulpit resounds with declamations to stimulate our too sluggish resentment, and to invite us to slaughter.-And thus the most unchristianlike of all our passions, the passion which it is most the object of our religion to repress, is excited and fostered. Christianity cannot be flourishing under circumstances like these. The more effec

Fell's Life of C. J. Fox.

tually we are animated to war, the more nearly we extinguish the dispositions of our religion. War and Christianity are like the opposite ends of a balance, of which one is depressed by the elevation of the other.

These are the consequences which make War dreadful to a state. Slaughter and devastation are sufficiently terrible, but their collateral evils are their greatest. It is the immoral feeling that war diffuses it is the depravation of Principle, which forms the mass of its mischief.

To attempt to pursue the consequences of war through all their ramifications of evil, were, however, both endless and vain. It is a moral gaugrene, which diffuses its humours through the whole political and social system. To expose its mischief, is to exhibit all evil; for there is no evil which it does not occasion, and it has much that is peculiar to itself.

That, together with its multiplied evils, war produces some good, I have no wish to deny. I know that it sometimes elicits valuable qualities which had otherwise been concealed, and that it often produces collateral and adventitious, and sometimes immediate advantages. If all this could be denied, it would be needless to deny it; for it is of no consequence to the question whether it be proved. That any wideextended system should not produce some benefits, can never happen. In such a system, it were an unheard-of purity of evil, which was evil without any mixture of good.-But, to compare the ascertained advantages of war with its ascertained mischiefs, and to maintain a question as to the preponderance of the balance, implies, not ignorance, but disingenuousness, not incapacity to decide, but a voluntary

concealment of truth.

And why do we insist upon these consequences of War? Because the review prepares the reader for a more accurate judgment respecting its lawfulness. Because it reminds him what War is, and because, knowing and remembering what it is, he will be the better able to compare it with the Standard of Rectitude.

LAWFULNESS OF WAR.

I WOULD recommend to him who would estimate the moral character of war, to endeavour to forget that he has ever presented to his mind the idea of a battle, and to endeavour to contemplate it with those emotions which it would excite in the mind of a being who had never before heard of human slaughter. The prevailing emotions of such a being would be astonishment and horror. If he were shocked by the horribleness of the scene, he would be amazed at its absurdity. That a large number of persons should assemble by agreement, and deliberately kill one another, appears to the understanding a proceeding so preposterous, so monstrous, that I think a being such as I have supposed would inevitably conclude that they were mad. Nor is it likely, if it were attempted to explain to him some motives to such conduct, that he would be able to comprehend how any possible circumstances could make it reasonable. The ferocity and prodigious folly of the act would, in his estimation, outbalance the weight of every conceivable motive, and he would turn unsatisfied away,

"Astonish'd at the madness of mankind."

There is an advantage in making suppositions such as these; because when the mind has been familiarized to a practice, however monstrous or inhuman, it loses some of its sagacity of moral perception; the practice is perhaps veiled in glittering fictions, or the mind is become callous to its enormi

ties. But if the subject is, by some circumstance, presented to the mind unconnected with any of its previous associations, we see it with a new judgment and new feelings; and wonder, perhaps, that we have not felt so or thought so before. And such occasions it is the part of a wise man to seek; since, if they never happen to us, it will often be difficult for us accurately to estimate the qualities of human actions, or to determine whether we approve them from a decision of our judgment, or whether we yield to them only the acquiescence of habit.

It may properly be a subject of wonder that the arguments which are brought to justify a custom such as war receive so little investigation. It must be a studious ingenuity of mischief which could devise a practice more calamitous or horrible; and yet it is a practice of which it rarely occurs to us to enquire into the necessity, or to ask whether it cannot be, or ought not to be avoided. In one truth, however, all will acquiesce-that the arguments in favour of such a practice should be unanswerably strong.

Let it not be said that the experience and the practice of other ages have superseded the necessity of enquiry in our own; that there can be no reason to question the lawfulness of that which has been sanctioned by forty centuries; or that he who presumes to question it, is amusing himself with schemes of visionary philanthropy. "There is not, it may be," says Lord Clarendon, "a greater obstruction to the investigation of truth or the improvement of knowledge, than the too frequent appeal, and the 200 supine resignation of our understanding, to antiquity." ."* Whosoever proposes an alteration of existing institutions, will meet, from some men, with a sort of instinctive opposition, which appears.to be influenced by no process of reasoning, by no considerations of propriety or principles of rectitude, which defends the existing system because it exists, and which would have equally defended its opposite if that had been the oldest. "Nor is it out of modesty that we have this resignation, or that we do, in truth, think those who have gone before us to be wiser than ourselves; we are as proud and as peevish as any of our progenitors; but it is out of laziness; we will rather take their words than take the pains to examine the reason they governed themselves by." To those who urge objections from the authority of ages, it is, indeed, a sufficient answer to say, that they apply to every long-continued custom. Slave-dealers urged them against the friends of the abolition; Papists urged them against Wickliffe and Luther; and the Athenians probably thought it a good objection to an apostle, that he seemed to be a setter forth of strange gods."

It is some satisfaction to be able to give, on a question of this nature, the testimony of some great minds against the lawfulness of war, opposed, as these testimonies are, to the general prejudice and the general practice of the world. It has been observed by Beccaria, that "it is the fate of great truths to glow only like a flash of lightning amidst the dark clouds in which error has enveloped the universe;" and if our testimonies are few or transient, it matters not, so that their light be the light of truth. There are, indeed, many, who in describing the horrible particulars of a siege or a battle, indulge in some declamation on the horrors of war, such as has been often repeated, and often applauded, and as often forgotten. But such declamations are of little value and of little effect; he who reads the next paragraph finds, probably, that he is invited to follow the path to glory and to victory-to share the

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hero's danger and partake the hero's praise; and be soon discovers that the moralizing parts of his author are the impulse of feelings rather than of principles, and thinks that though it may be very well to write, yet it is better to forget them.

There are, however, testimonies, delivered in the calm of reflection, by acute and enlightened men, which may reasonably be allowed at least so much weight as to free the present enquiry from the charge of being wild or visionary. Christianity indeed needs no such auxiliaries; but if they induce an examination of her duties, a wise man will not wish them to be disregarded.

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They who defend war," says Erasmus, "must defend the dispositions which lead to war: and thess dispositions are absolutely forbidden by the gospel.Since the time that Jesus Christ said, Put up thy sword into its scabbard, Christians ought not to go to war.-Christ suffered Peter to fall into an error in this matter, on purpose that, when He had put up Peter's sword, it might remain no longer a doubt that war was prohibited, which, before that order, bad been considered as allowable."- "Wickliffe seems to have thought it was wrong to take away the life of man on any account, and that war was utterly unlawful." *_ "I am persuaded," says the Bishop of Landaff, “that when the spirit of Christianity shall exert its proper influence, war will cease throughout the whole Christian world."† "War," says the same acute prelate, "has practices and principles peculiar to itself, which but ill quadrate with the rule of moral rectitude, and are quite abhorrent from the benigni y of Christianity." A living writer of eminence bears this remarkable testimony:-"There is but one community of Christians in the world, and that unhappily of all communities one of the smallest, enlightened enough to understand the prohibition of war by our Divine Master, in its plain, literal, and undeniable sense, and conscientious enough to obey it, subduing the very instinct of nature to obedience." §

Dr Vicessimus Knox speaks in language equally specific :-" Morality and religion forbid war, in its motives, conduct, and consequences." ||

ment.

Those who have attended to the mode in which the Moral Law is instituted in the expressions of the Will of God, will have no difficulty in supposing that it contains no specific prohibition of war. Accordingly, if we be asked for such a prohibition, in the manner in which Thou shalt not kill is directed to murder, we willingly answer that no such prohibition exists;-and it is not necessary to the arguEven those who would require such a prohibition, are themselves satisfied respecting the obligation of many negative duties on which there has been no specific decision in the New Testament. They believe that suicide is not lawful: yet Christianity never forbade it. It can be shown, indeed, by implication and inference, that suicide could not have been allowed, and with this they are satisfied. Yet there is, probably, in the Christian Scriptures, not a twentieth part of as much indirect evidence against the lawfulness of suicide as there is against the lawfulness of war. To those who require such a command as Thou shalt not engage in war, it is therefore sufficient to reply, that they require that, which, upon this and upon many other subjects, Christianity has not seen fit to give.

We have had many occasions to illustrate, in the course of these disquisitions, the characteristic nature of the Moral Law as a law of Benevolence. This Life of Bishop Watson. § Southey's History of Brazil.

*

Priestley.

+ Id.

Essays The Paterines or Gazari of Italy in the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries "held that it was not lawful to bear arms or to kill mankind."

benevolence, is good-will and kind affections towards one another, is placed at the basis of practical morality it is "the fulfilling of the law"-it is the test of the validity of our pretensions to the Christian character. We have had occasion, too, to observe, that this law of Benevolence is universally applicable to public affairs as well as to private, to the intercourse of nations as well as of men. Let us refer, then, to some of those requisitions of this law which appear peculiarly to respect the question of the moral character of war.

Have peace one with another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.

Walk with all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love.

Be ye all of one mind, having compassion one of another; love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous : not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing. Be at peace among yourselves. See that none render evil for evil unto any man.—— -God hath called us to peace.

Follow after love, patience, meeknes .—Be gentle, showing all meekness unto all men.—Live in peace.

Lay aside all malice.—Put off ung r, wrath, malice. -Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice.

Avenge not yourselves.—If thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink.-Recompense to no man evil for evil.-Overcome evil with good.

Now we ask of any man who looks over these passages, What evidence do they convey respecting the lawfulness of war? Could any approval or allowance of it have been subjoined to these instructions, without obvious and most gross inconsistency? -But if war is obviously and most grossly inconsistent with the general character of Christianity; if war could not have been permitted by its teachers, without an egregious violation of their own precepts, we think that the evidence of its unlawfulness, arising from this general character alone, is as clear, as absolute, and as exclusive, as could have been contained in any form of prohibition whatever.

But it is not from general principles alone that the law of Christianity respecting war may be deduced. Ye have heard that it hath been said, " An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: but I say unto you, that ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. Ye have heard that it hath been said, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy: but I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; for if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye?"*

Of the precepts from the Mount the most obvious characteristic is greater moral excellence and superior purity. They are directed, not so immediately to the external regulation of the conduct, as to the restraint and purification of the affections. In another precept it is not enough that an unlawful passion be just so far restrained as to produce no open immorality-the passion itself is forbidden. The tendency of the discourse is to attach guilt not to action only but also to thought. It has been said, "Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment; but I say unto you, 'that whosoever is angry with his brother, without a cause, shall be in danger of the judgment.""† Our Lawgiver attaches guilt to some of the violent feelings, such as resentment, hatred, revenge; and by

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doing this, we contend that he attaches guilt to war. War cannot be carried on without those passions which he prohibits. Our argument, therefore, is syllogistical-War cannot be allowed, if that which is necessary to war is prohibited. This, indeed, is precisely the argument of Erasmus:-" They who defend war must defend the dispositions which lead to war; and these dispositions are absolutely forbidden."

Whatever might have been allowed under the Mosaic institution as to retaliation or resentment, Christianity says, "If ye love them only which love you, what reward have ye?-Love your enemies." Now what sort of love does that man bear towards his enemy, who runs him through with a bayonet ? We repeat, that the distinguishing duties of Christianity must be sacrificed when war is carried on. The question is between the abandonment of these duties and the abandonment of war, for both cannot be retained.*

It is however objected, that the prohibitions, "Resist not evil," &c., are figurative; and that they do not mean that no injury is to be punished, and no outrage to be repelled. It has been asked, with complacent exultation, What would these advocates of peace say to him who struck them on the right cheek? Would they turn to him the other? What would these patient moralists say to him who robbed them of a coat? Would they give a cloak also? What would these philanthropists say to him who asked them to lend a hundred pounds? Would they not turn away? This is argumentum ad homin-m; one example amongst the many, of that low and dishonest mode of intellectual warfare, which consists in exciting the feelings instead of convincing the understanding. It is, however, some satisfaction, that the motive to the adoption of this mode of warfare is itself an indication of a bad cause; for what honest reasoner would produce only a laugh, if he were able to produce conviction?

We willingly grant that not all the precepts from the Mount were designed to be literally obeyed in the intercourse of life. But what then? To show that their meaning is not literal, is not to show that they do not forbid war. We ask in our turn, What is the meaning of the precepts? What is the meaning of "Resist not evil?" Does it mean to allow bombardment devastation-slaughter? If it does not mean to allow all this, it does not mean to allow war. What, again, do the objectors say is the meaning of, "Love your enemies," or of, " do good to them that hate you?" Does it mean, "ruin their commerce" "sink their fleets"-" 'plunder their cities'

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Let the retention of both has been, unhappily enough, attempted. In a late publication, of which a part is devoted to the defence of war, the author gravely recommends soldiers, whilst shooting and stabbing their enemies, to maintain towards them a feeling of "good-will!"-Tracts and Essays by the late William Iley, Esq., F. R. S. And Gisborne, in his Duties of Men, holds similar language. He advises the soldier "never to forget the common ties of human nature by which he is inseparably united to his enemy!"

+ It is manifest, from the New Testament, that we are not required to give a “cloak," in every case, to him who robs us of "a coat; but I think it is equally manifest that we are required to give it not the less, because he has robbed us: the circumstance of his having robbed us, does not entail an obli gation to give; but it also does not impart a permission to withhold. If the necessities of the plunderer require relief, it is the business of the plundered to relieve them.

whatever license of interpretation they may desire, they cannot, without virtually rejecting the precepts, so interpret them as to make them allow war.

Of the injunctions that are contrasted with, "eye for eye, and tooth for tooth," the entire scope and purpose is the suppression of the violent passions, and the inculcation of forbearance and forgiveness, and benevolence and love. They forbid, not specifically, the act, but the spirit of war; and this method of prohibition Christ ordinarily employed. He did not often condemn the individual doctrines or customs of the age, however false or however vicious; but he condemned the passions by which only vice could exist, and inculcated the truth which dismissed every error. And this method was undoubtedly wise. In the gradual alterations of human wickedness, many new species of profligacy might arise which the world had not yet practised: in the gradual vicissitudes of human error, many new fallacies might obtain which the world had not yet held: and how were these errors and these crimes to be opposed, but by the inculcation of principles that were applicable to every crime and to every error? -principles which define not always what is wrong, but which tell us what always is right.

There are two modes of censure or condemnation; the one is to reprobate evil, and the other to enforce the opposite good; and both these modes were adopted by Christ.--He not only censured the passions that are necessary to war, but inculcated the affections which are most opposed to them. The conduct and dispositions upon which he pronounced his solemn benediction are exceedingly remarkable. They are these, and in this order: Poverty of Spirit;-Mourning;-Meekness;-Desire of righteousness;-Mercy;-Purity of heart;-Peace-making; -Sufferance of persecution. Now, let the reader try whether he can propose eight other qualities, to be retained as the general habit of the mind which shall be more incongruous with war.

Of these benedictions, I think the most emphatical is that pronounced upon the Peace-makers. "Blessed are the peace-makers: for they shall be called the children of God."* Higher praise or a higher title, no man can receive. Now, I do not say that these benedictions contain an absolute proof that Christ prohibited war, but I say they make it clear that he did not approve it. He selected a number of subjects for his solemn approbation; and not one of them possesses any congruity with war, and some of them cannot possibly exist in conjunction with it. Can any one believe that he who made this selection, and who distinguished the peace-makers with peculiar approbation, could have sanctioned his followers in destroying one another? Or does any one believe that those who were mourners, and meek and merciful and peace making, could at the same time perpetrate such destruction? If I be told that a temporary suspension of Christian dispositions, although necessary to the prosecution of war, does not imply the extinction of Christian principles; or that these dispositions may be the general habit of the mind, and may both precede and follow the acts of war, I answer that this is to grant all that I require, since it grants that, when we engage in war, we abandon Christianity.

When the betrayers and murderers of Jesus Christ approached him, his followers asked, "Shall we smite with the sword?" and without waiting for an answer, one of them "drew his sword, and smote the servant of the high priest, and cut off his right ear." "Put up again thy sword into his place," said his Divine Master: "for all they that take the

Matt. v. 9.

There is the

sword shall perish with the sword."
greater importance in the circumstances of this com-
mand, because it prohibited the destruction of human
life in a cause in which there were the best of possible
reasons for destroying it. The question, "shall we
smite with the sword," obviously refers to the de-
fence of the Redeemer from his assailants, by force
of arms. His followers were ready to fight for him;
and if any reason for fighting could be a good one,
they certainly had it. But if, in defence of Himself
from the hands of bloody ruffians, his religion did
not allow the sword to be drawn, for what reason
can it be lawful to draw it? The advocates of war
are at least bound to show a better reason for de-
stroying mankind, than is contained in this instance
in which it was forbidden.

It will, perhaps, be said, that the reason why Christ did not suffer himself to be defended by arms, was, that such a defence would have defeated the purpose for which he came into the world, namely, to offer up his life; and that he himself assigns this reason in the context.-He does indeed assign it; but the primary reason, the immediate context is,"for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword." The reference to the destined sacrifice of his life is an after reference. This destined sacrifice might, perhaps, have formed a reason why his followers should not fight then, but the first, the principal reason which he assigned, was the reason why they should not fight at all.-Nor is it necessary to define the precise import of the words, "for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword;" since it is sufficient for us all, that they | imply reprobation.

It is with the apostles as with Christ himself. The incessant object of their discourses and writings is the inculcation of peace, of mildness, of placability. It might be supposed that they continually retained in prospect the reward which would attach to "Peace makers." We ask the advocate of war, whether he discovers in the writings of the apostles or of the evangelists, any thing that indicates they approved of war. Do the tenor and spirit of their writings bear any congruity with it? Are not their spirit and tenor entirely discordant with it? We are entitled to renew the observation, that the pacific nature of the apostolic writings, proves, presumptively, that the writers disallowed war. That could not be allowed by them as sanctioned by Christianity, which outraged all the principles that they inculcated.

"Whence come wars and fightings among you?" is the interrogation of one of the apostles, to some whom he was reproving for their unchristian conduct: and he answers himself by asking them," Come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members?" This accords precisely with the argument that we urge. Christ forbad the passions which lead to war; and now, when these passions had broken out into actual fighting, his apostle, in condemning war, refers it back to their passions. have been saying that the passions are condemned, and therefore war; and now, again, the apostle James thinks, like his master, that the most effectual way of eradicating war, is to eradicate the passions which produce it.

were.

We

In the following quotation we are told, not only what the arms of the apostles were not, but what they "The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds; and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ." I quote this, not only because it assures us that the apostles had nothing to do with military weapons, but because it

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